Google is finally collecting $$$ from end-users.
Picasa Web Albums and Gmail users can now upgrade their google accounts to add more storage. It looks like the Purchase Additional Storage Option is actually somewhat expensive. Especially considering what they give away for free.
Prices are as follows:
- 10 GB ($20.00 per year)
- 40 GB ($75.00 per year)
- 150 GB ($250.00 per year)
- 400 GB ($500.00 per year)
https://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=65431
The price actually seems a little unreasonable. At best, it’s around $1.25 per GB/Year and at worst it’s $2.00 GB/Year. That’s compared with a 1 TB Hitachi hard drive at 129.99, or around $0.12 per GB. And most hard drives have a 3 Year warranty these days.
People choosing to upgrade their account will see that their Picasa Web Albums and Gmail Storage space now simply support more. You can’t provision space between the accounts. If your Web Albums uses all the space, you can’t set some aside for your GMail account, or vice versa.
This brings about an interesting change in Google’s business model, which in the past has been an effort to make money from advertisers, and not having to collect money from end users.
This isn’t a big deal right now. They already give you 7 GB’s, but What will Google be doing next? You have to please those new shareholders some how.
Comments welcome.
<blockquote cite="#commentbody-525" class="regularquote">
Matt:
I don’t think Google is trying to be evil here. If my gmail account got close to the 7GB limit, I think I’d gladly pay for more space rather than opening a different account. As for the price, you can’t really equate it to the price of a hard drive. It’s willingness to pay once you have realized you’ve maxed out your inbox.
Matt,
I totally agree. It is reasonable to pay for something 'extra'. No doubt, but I still think it shows that Google is becoming more willing to collect money from end users, where previously they were collecting only from businesses (essentially) like domain work and the google box (indexing server for lease).
You're right though, there's nothing essentially 'wrong' with it, I just wanted to point out what I think is the first of a larger shift towards monetizing end users.
I don't think Google is trying to be evil here. If my gmail account got close to the 7GB limit, I think I'd gladly pay for more space rather than opening a different account. As for the price, you can't really equate it to the price of a hard drive. It's willingness to pay once you have realized you've maxed out your inbox.